Gremlins

by George Gipe

  The ambush Stripe now had in mind consisted of nothing more elaborate than a very long and narrow room with only one way in and out. There were no nooks and crannies to hide in, no cartons or boxes to use for cover, no closets to duck into. Called the Electronics Center, the room was simply a display area for several dozen television sets, home video games, and stereos, all neatly inset into the three walls. In the argot of the Old West, this was the box canyon into which Billy undoubtedly would come to meet his fate.

  At the very entrance to the room was a small closet now occupied by Stripe. Clutched tightly to his chest were a bow and a batch of steel-tipped arrows he had found in the sporting goods department after smashing his foot, He had never used the weapon before but knew the principle behind it, the bow and arrow being the standard primitive weapon of many galaxies and therefore a residual, almost intuitive piece of knowledge. All that was required for his mastery of the weapon was a bit of practice, which would start as soon as his young enemy walked to the far end of the room. At that point, according to his plan, Stripe would step out of the closet and begin shooting. With nowhere to hide, Billy would eventually be hit by one or more of the arrows, and that would be that.

  And if the young man decided to look into the closet before going to the end of the room? So much the better, Stripe thought. Then he would receive an arrow at point-blank range. The only thing lost would be the fun of using him for practice, seeing him panic and plead before succumbing to a direct hit.

  Waiting patiently, it was not long before Stripe heard quiet footsteps moving down the aisle toward the room. Through the crack of the barely open door he saw the figure hesitate a moment and then continue walking. In the semidarkness of the store he would be quite near the rear wall before realizing the room was a dead end, and by then, of course, it would be too late.

  Opening the door a bit wider, Stripe peered out and was pleased.

  “Just a few steps more,” he whispered.

  Billy went even farther than that, developing an interest in one of the pieces of equipment set into the far wall.

  Perfect, Stripe thought.

  Stepping quietly out of the closet, he nocked the first of his arrows and aimed it at an imaginary X between the young man’s shoulder blades.

  Kate was so confused she was nearly crying.

  “How do you work this thing, anyway?” she nearly shouted.

  For the past several minutes she had been pushing various buttons on the control panel in front of her with a total lack of success. It was not, she thought angrily, a user-friendly system, not unlike the first word processor she had tried using. Instead of labeling the buttons plainly and simply, according to their functions, the operator apparently had to punch an access code followed by the digit or digits programmed for each activity within the department store. Luckily, Kate had found the access code written on a piece of paper, but turning on the overhead lights was not so easy a matter. The closest she had come to it was when she punched the access code and the random digits 2-6, which turned on a string of permanently mounted Christmas lights near the main entrance.

  “Well, what the heck,” she said now. “If twenty-six does something, I might as well try sequence dialing.”

  With that, she punched the access code and followed with 2 and 7.

  Stripe pulled the bowstring as taut as he could make it, checked again to make sure his target was lined up correctly, and prepared to loose his first arrow.

  “Attention, please!” a loud voice suddenly announced.

  Shocked nearly out of his wits, Stripe jerked his arm as the arrow flew from the bow, striking a television screen a foot above Billy’s head.

  “Attention, please,” the announcer continued. “The store will close in ten minutes. Please complete any last-minute shopping you have so that our employees will be able to enjoy the rest of the evening. Thank you.”

  Startled by both the recorded announcement and the arrow crashing into the screen so close to him, Billy whirled. As he did so, he saw Stripe nock another arrow and aim it at him. Billy attempted to dance sideways, suddenly realizing he was the main target in a shooting gallery. Stripe responded with a fierce giggle, followed him, and loosed a second arrow. It tore through Billy’s jacket at the neckline.

  “That was close!” Billy muttered. “He’s a good shot.”

  Already the Gremlin’s arm was ready with another arrow. Billy licked his lips, looked around for a possible way out, but saw nothing. His only immediate plan was to continue dodging until Stripe ran out of arrows. Either that or charge, which was not particularly smart in that it made him a bigger target.

  The third arrow headed his way, quicker and more accurate than the others. Falling prone, Billy heard it speed by his ear a second before he hit the deck.

  Stripe giggled again, reached down for yet another arrow.

  While scrambling to his feet, Billy followed the movement of the Gremlin’s hand and saw it grab an arrow from a pile that must have included at least twenty more.

  There’s no chance, Billy thought miserably; with all those shots left he’ll get me for sure.

  But he could not bring himself to rush forward into the path of the flying missiles.

  Kate hit the STOP button just as the store-closing announcement ended and the READY button glowed expectantly.

  “Overhead lights,” she said, as if trying to will the panel to obey her. “The heck with closing time. Let me have the overhead lights!”

  Punching buttons furiously, she continued the numerical sequence only because she didn’t know what else to do. Numbers 27 through 46 were routine announcements similar to the store’s closing, and numbers 47 through 69 dealt with items currently on sale. Although she bailed out of each as soon as it failed to activate the lights, Kate was nearly beside herself. So much time was being wasted! Billy needed those lights and she was powerless to find them. All because of this complicated panel. As each number activated some insipid announcement, she pounded angrily on the desk, jabbed the STOP button, and tried again.

  “Do it,” she ordered. “Just do it.”

  “Men’s Fruit-of-the-Loom underwear, now on sale for the next ten min—”

  Pwing.

  “A new parking lot will be open at Montgomery Ward on the—”

  Whap.

  “Glidden Spread Satin paint, now on sale—”

  Thwong.

  “Jeans for Juveniles, now—”

  Twack.

  In a way, the juxtaposition of sound and sight was so bizarre it was almost funny. Here he was, his life on the line as the primary target in a shooting gallery, all to the bland accompaniment of retail sales pitches and announcements that were choked off in midsentence. Except that Billy wasn’t laughing. Those messages were him—a voice killed off by some unseen force just as it started to be heard.

  Kwock.

  Behind him and to his right another television screen was blasted to glass powder by the Gremlin’s arrow. There was no doubt now about two vital things: Stripe was having a great deal of fun, and he was an expert with the bow. Billy knew instinctively that he was toying with him, puncturing TV screens nearby for the sheer joy of it as intermediate bits of fun prior to sending a shaft into his back or chest. So far, Stripe had used about half his pile of arrows, but the situation was made even worse for Billy when several shafts caromed all the way back to the shooter, to be used again.

  “Ski poles and jackets—”

  Very deliberately, Stripe broke his pattern of six shots per minute and stood grinning at Billy. Still holding the bow poised for action, he first pointed at Billy with his free hand and then pointed to his own heart.

  Billy got the message. The fun and games were over and now Stripe was about to shoot in earnest. Taking a deep breath, he stood bouncing on the balls of his feet, readying himself to move as quickly as possible in any direction. But the experience of the past few minutes told him that he probably was not fast enough to avoid an arrow aimed directly
at his heart.

  Stripe, meanwhile, was determined to end the game, having grown weary of it. Becoming used to the store’s intermittent announcements, he was able to shut out the voice almost automatically. He prepared himself now, concentrating fully on lining up the target.

  “Holy cow, look at that! You hit him low, Barney, and I’ll give him a jolt of this.”

  Stripe, barely cognizant of the background sound and certainly not realizing its content, started to release the arrow.

  Gwock, plung.

  The erratically loosed arrow crashed into the ceiling and ricocheted into the floor as Rand Peltzer, closing to within a few inches of the Gremlin, unleashed a flume of shaving cream from the Bathroom Buddy. It shot like a white tornado directly into Stripe’s eyes, causing him to shriek with pain. At the same time Barney hurled himself at the creature’s leg, snapping and growling.

  Realizing what had happened and that he now had an opportunity to escape, Billy rushed forward. His escape mission was instantaneously converted into a rescue dash, for Stripe recovered from the two-pronged attack with amazing speed. Slapping Barney aside with the heavy bow as he shook the shaving cream from his face, the Gremlin grabbed an arrow and in less than a second had it pointed at Rand’s torso ten feet away.

  Still too far away to be of any help to his father, Billy could only hurl himself through the air, which was split by two simultaneous cries.

  “Nooooooo!”

  “Yeeeeechhhh!”

  Suddenly Billy realized that the overhead lights of this aisle way were on, that the cry of pain had come not from his father but from Stripe.

  Still recoiling with shock, the Gremlin dropped the bow and arrow and raced off toward an adjoining aisle, which was still dark. Barney started to follow, but stopped when Billy told him to stay.

  Sweating profusely, Rand shook his head and smiled, looking down at the Bathroom Buddy in his hand.

  “Well, I guess this was good for something after all,” he said.

  “Thanks, Dad,” Billy said.

  He started to go but his father followed.

  “Wait a minute. That thing’s dangerous. Why don’t you wait for the cops?”

  “No time.” Pointing toward the office, Billy called back over his shoulder. “Tell Kate to turn all the lights on. She’s in the office.”

  Then he was gone, racing into the darkness toward Stripe’s retreating form.

  When the lights went on, Gizmo was in the process of making a left turn just outside the area from which all the noise was coming. Partially blinded and gripped by a spasm of pain, he lost control of the tiny car, which raced at nearly full speed into a rack of audio tapes. Curling into a ball beneath the dashboard, Gizmo debated whether or not he should come out into the bright light and resultant pain. If he remained here, he would be all right until someone discovered him. But, of course, that wouldn’t help Billy.

  In this case, he thought, it’s better to be sorry than safe.

  Thrusting his head back into the light, he winced, but saw through the pain that the light dropped off in the adjacent aisle. If he could just get there . . .

  “Lucky but dumb.”

  That was the description Kate gave to her last act at the control panel. And now she was stuck with it.

  Totally frustrated at the array of trite announcements and failure to turn on the lights, she had abandoned her sequential-digit plan and just punched furiously at the board. Miraculously, that desperate, almost spasmodic gesture resulted in a bank of lights going on, illuminating approximately 10 percent of the floor area. That was the good news.

  The bad news was that she had absolutely no idea what numbers she had punched. If adjacent overhead light systems were activated by numbers close to the one she had punched, they were still as lost to her as before.

  “What was it?” she whispered, straining to recall where her fingers had gone. “What was that number?”

  It seemed as if it had been something in the high nineties. Once again feeding the computer the access code, she sighed and punched 98.

  “Ladies and gentlemen, we now direct your attention to the northernmost end of the store, where the Carroll B. Hebbel Memorial Fountain is being turned on for the day. This magnificent piece of free-form sculpture, the work of artist Donald Budé, was constructed so that the interplay of falling water and lights would provide maximum dramatic effect. Although relatively new, the fountain is already known throughout the state as an outstanding example of art and business working together to increase your shopping pleasure.”

  The significance of the announcement did not register with Billy until he heard the gentle burbling noise in the distance. Then, playing it back in his mind, he heard the all-important words . . . Fountain . . . Water . . .

  “No!” he yelled at the top of his lungs, breaking stride only to scream it again as he ran a few steps backward. “No! Turn it off! Turn off the fountain!”

  He realized Kate was too far away to hear him, but perhaps if his father, several hundred feet behind him, heard his plea, he would relay the message.

  In the meantime Stripe continued to run ahead of him, racing as fast as he could. Billy was gaining on him, but a tiny voice in his head told him the damage had already been done. The fountain was running. There was no withdrawing the water that had fallen, and its telltale murmur was a siren song for the creature ahead who was rapidly approaching it.

  Barney, well in front of Billy, was following Stripe closely, snapping at his tail and hind legs. But that was only harassment and what they needed now was containment. If Barney had been trained as a watch or attack dog, he might have been able to restrain the Gremlin. Now the most he could do was irritate and distract him while protecting himself from Stripe’s slashing claws.

  The northern end of the store was outfitted as a sort of greenhouse, filled with flowers of all kinds along the walls, which supported a magnificent skylight now covered by a large canvas tarpaulin. In the darkness the flowers blended together, forming an overhanging canopy, so that moving through the entrance was rather like entering a tropical rain forest.

  Stripe abruptly turned at the door and gave Barney a swipe with his claws that sent the dog scurrying backward several feet. He remained at that distance, barking ferociously. Having taken care of his canine pursuer, Stripe looked directly at Billy, giggled triumphantly, and pointed to the glistening wall of water sheeting downward from the lip of the top fountain.

  Billy’s chest seemed about to burst from exertion, but he forced himself to continue running . . . faster . . . faster . . .

  Then . . . all of a sudden it was too late.

  When Billy closed to within twenty feet of him, Stripe, taking no chances, leaped onto the ledge of the fountain, teetered there one tantalizing moment, and then did a gentle backflip into the water.

  The sight turned Billy’s legs to strands of limp spaghetti. Leaning against the entrance wall, he allowed himself to slide slowly to the floor. Closing his eyes, he tried not to think of the past twenty-four hours, but the Gremlin’s giggling, mixed with the sound of falling water, made it impossible to forget . . . Four times he thought he had solved the problem . . . at home . . . in the YMCA . . . the theatre . . . and now here . . . Successful each time . . . except for Stripe.

  He took a deep breath and let the air out very slowly. Already he could hear the faint popping sounds as the bubbles that would become new Gremlins began to erupt from the surface of Stripe’s skin.

  Gizmo, still at the wheel of his miniature Stingray, rolled through the entrance to the greenhouse and immediately saw the worst. Billy, sitting, distraught . . . Stripe, laughing despite the pain of reproduction . . . And nothing could be done to set matters straight.

  Unless—

  His gaze moving quickly from floor to ceiling, Gizmo chirped optimistically, whipped the car sharply to his right, and applied full power. One thing Mogturmen had done correctly was give his creation a mind that was capable of rapidly analyzing
a situation and coming up with a solution. That’s why the tarpaulin, latch, and string were just objects in a big room to Billy the human, but answers to Gizmo the Mogwai. As soon as he spotted them, he knew there was still a chance to pull this one out.

  Nearly crashing into the rear wall, he leaped from the car and raced for the spot where the rope was wound around the steel latch.

  It was just out of his reach.

  Babbling in Mogwai, he pushed the Stingray beneath the spot and leaped onto the hood. Working as quickly as he could with his clumsy paws, he slowly twisted the rope free of the metal latch. The final turn released it with such force Gizmo felt his feet lifted from the car and his body being carried upward at a breathtaking rate of speed.

  Closing his eyes, he let go his grip, tumbling downward onto the hood of the car and then to the floor.

  Above him he saw the canvas tarpaulin begin to roll away from the windows, the long narrow strips sliding neatly into compartments hidden beneath the sills. As they did so, a flood of bright early-morning sunlight cut a bluish white path through the middle third of the entire greenhouse.

  Squarely in that path was Stripe.

  Magnified and focused by the window glass, the sunlight fell across the prostrate Gremlin like a superheated girder, a searing weight he was powerless to move. Nor could he move his own body, weakened as it was by the light and the effort of reproducing new Gremlins. Soon hot fluids began to ooze from his pores, eyes, and the sides of his mouth. He tried to scream, but all that emerged was a guttural moan. Trapped in their brief moment of vulnerability before birth, the bubbles forming on Stripe’s skin smoldered, blistered, and cracked. The grisly product of both the cool water and the hot violence of the Gremlin’s death rose in a gray mist from the fountain and gradually dispersed, the final creation of the worst night in Kingston Falls history.

  C H A P T E R

  TWENTY

  By the day after Christmas, reasonably normal patterns of living had returned to the Peltzer household and most of Kingston Falls. Newspeople from all over the state continued to pick through the wreckage—not only of buildings but of people’s minds—in their efforts to dig out the grisliest details of the event, but the townspeople as a whole seemed anxious only to forget what had happened and resume their ordinary lives.